A male name. Latin Julianus, a derivative of Julius (q.v.). There were some 10 saints of this name, but the best known of them is the legendary St Julian the Hospitaller, the patron saint of travellers. The name is found in England from the 13th C, and the surnames Julian, Julyan, Jolland, Jalland, Golland are derived from it. Julian was also the usual Middle English form of Juliana (q.v.).

Julianus Feudal Aids 1285. Jolanus Feudal Aids 1302. Jollanus, Jollan Testa de Neville, or Book of Fees, temp. Hen. III-Edw. I 13th C. Jolin Hundred Rolls 1273.

A female name. the f. form of Julian (q.v.). St Juliana was said to have been martyred at Nicomedia under Galienus and her relics were preserved at Brussels and Sablon. Her name was consequently a favourite in the Low Countries, and it was probably from there that it reached England towards the end of the 12th C. The usual English form was Julian, Julyan, or Gillian, together with the diminutive Gill, Jill, Gillot, Juliet, Juet. It was one of the commonest girl’s names from the 12th to 15th C, and there are many surnames, derived from it e.g. Julian, Julien, Julyan, Jolyan, Juet, Jewett, Jowett, Gill, Gilson, Gillett, Gillott, &c. By the 16th C Jill had become a synonym for a flirt or worse (cf. Shakespeare’s ‘flirt-gill’), and the word jilt comes from Gillot. Another sign of the former frequency of the name is the common expression ‘Jack and Jill’, which survives in the well-known nursery rhyme. This was no doubt the reason why the name went out of fashion in the 16th and 17th C. In the 18th C the Latin form Juliana came in and continued to be used in the 19th C. The older Gillian has been revived in the present century, and Jill is also now used as an independent name.

Juliana Curia Regis Rolls 1196-1220, Hundred Rolls 1273. Gillian Hundred Rolls 1273. Gille Hundred Rolls 1273. Gylle Coventry Mysteries 15th C. Juet Hundred Rolls 1273. Jelyan Cocke Lorelle's Bote c. 1515.

Latin Julianus, a derivative of Julius (q. v.). ‘The unpopularity which might have clung to it as... the name of two apostates was counteracted by its being that of ten Saints’: no, Helena Swan, for while there are about thirty saints, whose influence assuredly outweighs that of one-third that number, there was much in the character of Julian the Apostate par excellence (331-363) to excite the admiration of all but narrow Christians and his dying vicisti, Galilaee (Christ, thou hast conquered) is merely the figment of a pious wish.

A name derived from the Latin Julianus, formed from Julius. Julian is a female as well as a male name.

Latin (masculine) - Soft-haired.